You're listening to cubicle to CEO episode 198. This affiliate marketing focused episode with Molly Keyser rounds out the final installment in our three part word of mouth and referral marketing miniseries. After spending years building a successful photography business, Molly package her knowledge into a digital course educating other photographers in scale that one program to $2 million a year 10% of the total sales were actually driven by her own students who became affiliates for the course. An impressive feat covered in today's case study where Molly walks us through her process for equipping and motivating her Student Affiliates, 50 In total, to promote the course on her behalf. Keep listening if you want to tap into the power of word of mouth marketing at scale through affiliates.
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Molly, I am so thrilled to have you on our show today. Thank you for being here for rounding out this series on the power of word of mouth marketing. I'm really excited to dive into your case study today.
Awesome. Well, it's all very important. And I'm very excited to be chatting about this with you today.
Molly, we always start off by asking our guests what their cubicle to CEO story is. So I'd love to hear how you made that leap from employee to entrepreneur.
Oh my gosh, that's such an okay, I love this prompt. And obviously, I've heard this on your podcast. My story is a little bit different because I never had like a cubicle job. I never really had a job. So I was just in college and I did some internships at like art galleries and things like that I was studying art and photography in college. But my story more was I dropped out of college with obviously a lot of debt, student loans, all of that. And I was somewhat panicking in college like how am I ever going to pay back all of these loans, and they weren't necessarily teaching me how to make money with art. And so that's when I decided I'm just going to drop out and make it happen. And so with just 81 cents, I literally printed Vistaprint business cards, I knocked on doors, I did photo shoots for as many business owners as I could. And fast forward a couple years later, I had built a multiple six figure photography studio. And then from there, I had photographers asking me how I did it. And so I started doing digital products and courses and we grew that to $2 million per year. And now I help other business owners and content creators monetize their followings with digital products and courses.
You're amazing. I love that you remember exactly how much your printing costs for those cards are.
When you have 81 cents every penny counts.
Literally that that's that's really inspiring. I don't think we've ever quite had a story where it's like it came down to less than $1. Right.
And I was living with my grandma. So that's why if you're wondering like, how did you pay rent with 81 cents? Oh, no, I didn't even have my own place to live.
That's so inspiring. Because it really reminds us that you can have the smallest of starts and it can grow into something so much bigger. So if any of you are thinking, you know, I don't have a lot that I'm starting out with Molly had 81 cents. So let's just keep that in mind. Molly, you just referenced that your course business has now grown to $2 million a year, which is so impressive, you sold more than $8 million lifetime and your digital products and courses. And I really want to send her in on how you've leveraged your students to be affiliates for your programs that has allowed you to have this explosive organic growth. So let's let's actually kind of like rewind for a second and give our listeners a bit of context, this course that you have scaled to $2 million a year. What is the course? Who was before and prior to bringing on your students as affiliates. What was the main way that you were selling this course?
Yeah. So as I told you guys in my story, you know, I went from dropout to photographer to photo educator. So this particular course I want to focus on today was my top course, for my photo education business. And that's the one that we scaled to $2 million per year. So how we were doing it in the very beginning was organic. I started growing my following with blogging, so I really started from nothing. And keep in mind, this was 2014. So blogging still works, but it's a bit different now. I mean, that was like RSS feeds. Pinterest just started it was it was poppin with blogging. So I did a blog every week grew my following that way. And then we expanded to a Facebook group, just a couple of different things. I was never really that big on Instagram. I think it was mostly a Facebook group and the blogging. But then what we really when we really started to scale, you're probably not going to be surprised by this, but we did Facebook ads. And so that's kind of how we got our first students was the organic.
Then we added the ads and once we had a good number of testimonials from our students, that's when we were like, Okay, we really need to add this affiliate program, which we call it a referral program because our photography students, they just weren't really familiar with the term affiliates. You know, they weren't online business owners, they were photographers. So we called it a referral program and the main reason we decided to do this, obviously we wanted to scale our sales help more people get the word out there, right but the biggest thing was we had a lot of students Those who were deciding to take this program, they wanted to talk to previous students. And so we wanted to have a way to reward those students for their time. Because in the beginning, you know, people would message them on Facebook and be like, is this real? Like, does this program really work this? Well, you know, tell me about it. But then after they'd be messaged by 5, 10, 15 people, you know, because people would see their testimonial with their name, I never would block their names that I would just, you know, let it all let it all out there. And that would take up a lot of their time, you know, and they had photo businesses to run. And so I thought, we really need a way to reward these students. And so that's really why we decided to do that.
The genesis of that is, is really interesting to me, because you're right, I've been on the receiving end of those DMS being like, Hey, I saw that your testimonial for so and so's program. Can you tell me, you know, can you expand on what you shared and, and I love that you were wanting to make it a win win for them. I'm curious, the point when you started to bring your students in as referral partners or as affiliates, just like right before that that decision? What was your course making per year then? Because now we know it makes 2 million a year. But do you remember what it was making at that point?
Okay, so 2018, we essentially went from zero to 2 million a year from 2018 1920 In two years, zero to 2 million in two years. So I would say the first year would be 1 million ish. Obviously, that's not like, I'm not looking at my account right now. But that's, that's the ballpark. And so I did look at my numbers, though, of our referral program. And once we rolled out the referral program, affiliate program, whatever you want to call it, we added 10% to the bottom line. So 10% of the sales came from those referrals.
That's incredible. That's one out of every 10 students. Right.
Yeah, that sounds even better when you say it that way.
I mean, that that is really impressive, especially as, in some ways an organic traffic source. I mean, yes, they are being paid. But it's not a, I think this is the thing that, you know, we really have to understand as business owners is that affiliate marketing is paid traffic at the end of the day, but it's not paid upfront, so you're not burdening the risk on yourself in the same way that you are when you pay for ads, because you already paid the money, and there's no guarantee that that money will be recuperated. So I want to ask now, when you structured this referral program, how were you structuring the payout or the commission? Like what was the cost of the course? How much of that were you paying for each new referral brought in to your students?
Yeah, great question. So this was actually what I would refer to as like a high ticket course, I usually would say a mid ticket would be like 297 to 1997. This was actually a $6,000. Program. Okay, yeah, we did start it at $2,997. And then we grew it over time. And this is a little off topic. But I think you guys might find this interesting. We did also, at one point, sell it at $10,000. But we actually you might think, Oh, I'll make more money if I charge more for my program. But you actually need to look at the conversion rate, because we actually made the most one the charge the $6,000. So just a little nugget in there for you guys. But so that's how much the program wasn't.
So each sale commission was $500, there was a payment plan. So I'm sure we would have given them like half of the 500. And then half, but I looked at our referrals, and the majority of them were all painful. And so what we did was, we waited, of course until that money came through. And we actually had a delay of 30 days to pay out the affiliate. I don't know I really I don't know there are students, so students. But yeah, so you definitely don't want to pay before you get paid. You definitely want to get paid from that sale. And then also give it 30 days, because obviously it's not likely to happen. But let's say they do like a chargeback or they want to refund or something goes awry with that sale, you definitely want to give it that time so that you're not paying the commission before you've seen the money in your account.
Right now, that completely makes sense. How did you arrive at the $500? Was it just like, oh, that sounds like an even payout? Did you test different amounts to see what was most incentivizing for your Student Affiliates?
Yeah, I love this question. So the biggest thing we did was we talked to our students, we said what what because our photography students they were making, you know, we were teaching them how to get like $3,000 average photo sale. So if they can put their time and get one client for $3,000 Why would they spend their time promoting our program if we're not paying them like a good amount of money, right? And so it came down to first of all, you know, we did the numbers and we couldn't afford Word to give them half. Because of the money we were paying to, like build our audience and all those numbers, essentially. But we started talking to our students and asking them, like, what would be an amount of money that you would actually feel like motivated, and want to actually go out and promote this program, not only from people contacting you, but we also taught them how to promote in our Facebook groups and things we can touch on that in a bit. But that's how we arrived at that we never actually tested different amounts, but I think that would be a smart thing to do.
Well, I asked, because I loved that extra nugget, you threw in earlier of how you tested a different price point for your program and realize, oh, $6,000 is actually where conversion is best at which I find really interesting, although I'm not surprised, especially if your average price that your students are charging their clients is $3,000. That's such a great selling point, right, within two clients, you can make back your investment in the program. And so I wanted to also see if you had the data around, you know, your students, okay, they make $500 per referral, they send your way. Do you have any data around what the average affiliate that is a student specifically is making? Like, do people tend to send you two to three referrals? And then they kind of, you know, phase out? Or do you have any super affiliates that you're seeing send you new students every single month, every single year? Just curious how that spread looks?
Yeah, yeah. So we have like a referral tracking sheet. And I looked at it before we started recording, I have all the data on my right hand side here. And what I've really taken away from looking at that, first of all, it was eye opening for me, because I'm like, Oh, I haven't looked at this in awhile. But what I noticed was out of the, I don't know 300. And something students in that program, 50 of them, like officially signed up. So they took the initiative to sign up for the program. And then I would say, on average, it would be like one or two sales, but we had one or two refers that brought in the majority of all of the sales. So I thought that was really interesting. And I think that's also really important for you to analyze your data and make sure that you're giving those hyper referral people, whatever you want to call them, make sure that you're giving them like a good amount of attention. And also, it might even be worth your time to sit down with them and brainstorm more ways that they could promote. Because if they're that interested in, they're having that much success, it would be worth your time. And also one other thing, too, was prizes. So you could say once you get this many referrals, not only are you getting the money, but now maybe you qualify for like a special mastermind or a one on one with me or something like that.
I love that idea that access that further proximity to you, I'm sure it's something that a lot of students would find valuable. And I do want to get back to the power affiliates in just a moment. But I don't want to discount how impactful it can be. Even if your average affiliate only refers and I say only in quotation marks only refers one to two students, and especially for a higher ticket program like you have. Because I mean, if you think about it, if every single student was an affiliate and referred you one person, you've literally doubled your program overnight. Right. So that's amazing. I think that the majority of your affiliates are even getting that one to two market. I think it speaks volumes is a testament to how incredible your program actually is Molly. So I think that's something that you can take away from looking at your data as well. The power affiliates, though, the one to two people that you mentioned, brought in the majority of the referrals. Is there anything unique, you noticed about these particular affiliates? Do they stand out with students? Is it just that they have larger platforms? Is it a creative way that they've promoted anything come to mind?
Oh, absolutely. So I do want to say that. I totally understand if you have a business where your students are not business owners with a following of ideal clients for your program. It can be challenging, and that's exactly what what I had like none of our students had followings of other photographers, they only have followings of their actual, like potential clients. Right? So what we did was we had a Facebook program for our business and then we actually allowed the referrers affiliates to go in that group and we allowed them to share your story answer questions like most people, I feel like with affiliate programs, they don't actually allow people to promote in their own following space. They make sure that they have to be somewhere else.
But for us that worked really well because like I said, our students didn't have followings of our ideal clients only we did. And so that would be one thing that the successful referrers had in common is they were actually going out and really taking their time to answer questions and are regroup, to spread their stories, and they weren't just waiting for messages to come to them, they were actually going out and putting in the work. Another thing was some of our students had written blog posts that were SEO based. And I teach them how to do that. So I taught them, like write a blog post with your story about the program. And then I taught them like keyword SEO stuff so that their blogs would rank. Also, the number one thing that the select the top two referrers, what they had in common was they had really good stories really good experiences with the program really, like they literally went from like zero to half a million dollars a year. So, you know, obviously, it's a lot easier to convert someone when you have a testimony like that, for sure.
Absolutely. I'm okay. I'm so fascinated, Molly by this concept that you just revealed, so you have your own. If I'm understanding correctly, free community, Facebook group where people like other photographers, you've gathered this community of other photographers, they're not all your students, some of them are customers, some are not. And you're saying you're allowing your own students to go into your own community, and share their testimonials and stories. And then if they end up converting someone from your Facebook group, you're counting it as their affiliate, even though the traffic source technically was your own traffic source, right?
We did, because how we did the program was since it was high ticket, and we had salespeople, the student would have to name who sent them. And so unlike other affiliate programs, I've done for more like 997 courses, those ones, you can just have a link, and you can use a software, and it can just track it all for you. But when you're doing high ticket and you're using salespeople, it's a lot more difficult because they're getting on the phone and having a sales conversation. They're not just clicking a link and going to a checkout page. So yeah, we had to do it that way. So like I said, this was my photo education business. And so we had a free community for any photographers. And that was huge for our business. And yes, we allowed those students to go in there because essentially, all the people that were interested, they will be asking questions in this group, like, Hey, I heard about this program, like, what do you think? And, you know, over time, I couldn't keep up with those messages.
And also, it's not as compelling for me to be like, yeah, join my program. It's awesome. Like, no one really cares what I have to say. They want to know what the students results are. So if they go in and answer those questions, it's way more compelling, right. And then also, you know, even though it is technically our traffic, like, they're also actually kind of helping us grow the Facebook group, because maybe someone reaches out to them. And they're like, Hey, join this group. So it really was a community aspect. And I did I did struggle with like, Should we let them convert our own traffic? But then I'm like, Well, if we don't, we're just losing sales, because those people aren't going to convert without talking to the students first. So
I love your abundance mindset around this. I think it's really admirable. And I think that it's a really healthy perspective shift, honestly, for a lot of online business owners. Because yes, you may have, you know, nurture that traffic source, or you may have been responsible for accruing, I guess, for lack of a better word, that community or that that traffic source, but it's not about the point of origin, right, it's about the point of conversion. And, to your point, just because someone initially discovered you, through following you or joining your group, doesn't mean they necessarily would have ever converted to a student without that additional interaction. And the person responsible for creating that conversion point does deserve credit. And so I really love the way that you're bringing this new concept to mind because I've personally never talked to another online business owner, who I don't know, I guess approaches affiliate referrals the way that you do. So I really appreciate you bringing that point to our show. I guess the big question now is, you kind of already, I guess, alluded to the point that your original students who were getting all these inbound questions became the perfect like, first referral partners for your program because they were already doing the work. And then you were like, let me compensate you for this. But beyond those people who were getting those inbound messages at the start, how did you start inviting your students to become referral partners for your program? Was it a structured process? Did they have to apply? Or were you just kind of taking people as they would come or sending individual invites out to people?
Yeah, so the one big rule that we had was they had to be a student of our program, we just felt it just didn't feel aligned for us to allow people that weren't in our program to tell other people to join our program when they hadn't joined our program. Essentially, the number one way that we promoted it was when they logged into the actual course it said something like refer students for money that's a bit too harsh, but it was like refer students and earn or something like that. And so it was one of the main there was only like three Links in the program and it was one of the main links. And so that's really how we did it. And I think really two it was, it was just a lot of word of mouth, like we would celebrate when other students would earn those commissions. And so then other students would see that, and then they'd be like, oh, I want to earn commissions, you know. And so that's really how it was. We never, you know, with other affiliate programs I've done, like I mentioned with like a 997 course, where they're just going to a checkout page, there's a link, I've done it where I've reached out to other educators.
But for this particular program, I didn't it was such a niche, it was teaching photographers, boudoir photography, there just weren't a lot of other educators aligned with it. So this this worked best. But for other affiliate programs I've done, me and my friend, Jamie actually created this Facebook group for photography, educators, oh, and then we brought them all in. And then we all just shared like, you know, nuggets, and it was kind of like a mastermind, but only in a Facebook group. And what ended up happening was, we all kind of were able to be affiliates for each other. So if that's something that you're thinking of doing is like going outside of the students, or maybe your program is brand new, and you just want to find other educators or people in your space, I would say do something like that, where you're creating a community that creates value for them, you're not just messaging them being like, Hey, could you promote this thing that really doesn't help you in any way other than make you some money if you make a sale. But really, you're you're leading with Hey, be part of the school community where we're all going to help each other. And, you know, we didn't even ask right away for Hey be an affiliate you know, it was like, we really created these genuine friendships. And that's something that I really can't speak to enough is like, always approached people that you genuinely want to get to know and genuinely like, and then over time, if it makes sense, then you can, you know, ask them for something, but I always like to lead with doing something for them. And yeah, we, that could be a whole episode. But
I'm like sitting here riveted like, yes, we need to, we need to follow up on this. I really liked that idea of creating a community that provides value first and foremost to the educators in those peer to peer connections or masterminding, like you alluded to, before asking, Okay, how can we then also collaborate to to make money together? Because to your point, I think a lot of people think that the most incentivizing thing for someone to refer to you is the money. But as we discovered, actually, in the episode that aired just prior to yours, you know, we were talking about high ticket one on one client sales and and what was incentivizing to people to refer that type of service. And the guests that we interviewed, Sara actually found the same thing that it wasn't always about the potential to earn money that made someone want to step up as a referral partner. So I'm really, really glad that you brought that point to the forefront for this as well. But back to the I guess, the application process or the onboarding process, so people can click directly from within their student portal, if I'm understanding correctly, to sign up to be an affiliate? Is there any sort of formal I guess, education or onboarding process to prepare them? You mentioned earlier, for example, that you had some tips or assets that you could provide people? What does that look like? What are they been given as support materials to be able to show up, as you know, better affiliates?
Yeah, so for this program, in particular, it was very informal, it was very much just sign up and start referring and make sure that they tell your name at the sales call, like that was pretty much it, because it worked, you know, and so there really was no reason to improve what wasn't broken, right. But with other affiliate programs, like I said, if you're doing something where they click a link, go to a sales page, it's all automatically tracked, which is another great way to do an affiliate program. I've actually done that with four of my 997 courses. But with that, we actually provide them with literally everything so we would provide them with done for you sales emails, so like dozens of them, they could choose, they can edit them to their liking. The more that you can have done for an affiliate or a promoter, the more likely they're going to actually do it, right. Because, like you said, Yeah, money is great, but there's so many opportunities out there right now to just make money. There's so many opportunities to promote an affiliate. And so there needs to be more than just money.
So if you can do, you know, build a relationship with this person, also pay them out, but also give them done for you promotional material. So again, the sales pages, maybe it's blog posts, social media posts, we would just have, essentially, we would just have a Word document with all of these posts in there and I would just have my copywriter, create all these and then we would just share the link with them. So you know, we didn't take the time to like design it all. Pretty or anything like that it wasn't necessary, just having the Word document. And then think about it from your perspective, if you really wanted to promote a program or something to your following, and you know, now Oh, I gotta pay my copywriter, or I gotta take my time to write this copy or whatever, but it's now done for you, you're gonna be so much more likely to actually follow through with that. And it's also like, if you have a following, that's such a fast way to make money, like they're giving you the materials, you just schedule those emails. And if all goes well, you're just gonna make some sales
1,000%. I couldn't agree more with that recommendation, both from the side of someone who has affiliated for other people, but also from organizing our own affiliate launches. That plug and play mentality is so key. And even though for example, when I you know, would refer other people's programs, I would always customize heavily, I would say, the swipe copy, they would provide me, it still gave me a baseline to start with to, you know, to work with. And that made it so much easier than just staring at a blank screen being like, Okay,what what do I want to say about this particular product or program? So, I love that advice. You mentioned earlier that you've seen successful partners of yours, share their testimonials in your own Facebook group for this higher ticket program, because you're not providing your students that same swipe copy or assets, and it is a little bit more informal. What other things have you seen your top affiliates do well, for this $6,000 program, outside of you know, promoting in your own Facebook group?
Yeah, so the the main ways that they promoted was I educated them on the blogging because every single one of our students already had a blog that they were using to like, if you're not familiar with the photo industry, most photographers, they'll take the highlights of the photos from their photo sessions and the blog it and so you really need to think to yourself, Okay, what do these students or refers or affiliates already have, and then utilize that, because if you're training them on growing a tiktok account to promote your program, and they've literally never made a tiktok before, like, that's not going to go well. So you want to just use the tools and skills and things that they already have. So all I had to do was educate them on how to actually rank it for the specific thing that we wanted to rank for. Because we knew that people were searching for this program, like, you know, what, what are those programs results, or, you know, things like that, right. And so we knew that if we could get those blog posts to rank with their stories, that that would be really big.
So it really was that and then the Facebook groups, because again, you know, if your students or affiliates aren't in Facebook groups, and don't use that, but for us, like that's where the gold was, like, that's really where the photo industry wants, you know, like Facebook groups. And so not only did they we've talked about how they used our group, but also went out into other groups. So there's a lot of groups out there that are just specific for photographers that aren't even run by other educators. And it's not like they're going and promoting their own program, either. They're just going in and sharing their story, you know, so they could go in and say, like, oh, my gosh, I had my biggest month ever, to get people to celebrate for them. But then obviously, naturally, people are going to be like, Well, wait, how did you do that? And then they're like, Oh, well, let me tell you, you know, and so it just opens up a really natural conversation. And I think, especially for our ideal clients at the time, you know, that's how we needed to approach it was conversational. This is what worked for me, this is my story. And so again, it's really going to depend on what's your niche? What's your industry? Who's your ideal client? What are the social media platforms that they're on? What is your ideal client? Like? Where are they hanging out, essentially, and then sort of working backwards from there?
Oh, okay. There's two golden nuggets from what you just shared that I want to pull out for listeners. Number one piggybacking off what your students are already doing. Well, the resources they already have at hand, like you mentioned, for your photo students, it was that they already were using blogging as a tool to promote their own business. So how do you now just integrate a piece of content into their workflow that allows them to share their story as a student in your program? I have a question, a follow up question on the SEO training part of that, that I want to circle back to So remind me if I forget, the second golden nugget I wanted to pull out was how you're having your students when they're going into other people's traffic sources. So not your Facebook group, but other people's Facebook groups, how you're encouraging them to lead with story, instead of I would say even this is interesting, even from the perspective of a lot of people when they think about going into Facebook groups to try to attract clients.
Usually the advice is you want to create value giving posts right tips, or here's what's working well for me, and there's nothing wrong with I think it's obviously very helpful and does provide value to the people in the group. But I love that you're kind of approaching from the perspective of it doesn't have to look like here are three tips for how to you know whatever. instead saying, Hey, I have something I want to celebrate with you and creating intrigue around that connection around that story. And then like you said, the conversations that follow that naturally will lead to, well, what are you doing in order to, you know, hit these milestones or achievements. So those were two great nuggets, I wanted to pull out from what Molly just said. But like I said, I'm only I'm going to circle back real quick to the SEO part. So you mentioned that you are training your photographers on how to rank for certain keywords that people may be searching who are interested in your program? Have you condensed that into kind of like a self paced video training series that you're just handing off to any affiliates who want to utilize that strategy? Or are you getting on one on one calls or group calls and walking people through that process in real time,
it was just a loom video that I made. And then I could just share the link with people. But I like your idea of the the group training. I think one thing I want to highlight is going just touching back on the Facebook group thing is really following your affiliates and referrers and seeing what they're doing and what's working, because it actually wasn't my idea for them to go into other Facebook groups, because I thought, oh, that could be bad, right? But they're actually the ones who came up with just I don't even think they were intentionally being like, I'm going to make sales. Like I think they were just in other groups and sharing their wins. And then naturally, you know, other people wanted to know how they did it.
And so that's something that I have found in my 16 years in business that's so important is looking like tracking back. Okay, who did that sale? Oh, that came from this refer? Okay, and then contact them mean, like, hey, what exactly happened here? Like, did they reach out to you? Did you reach out to them? How did this come about? Because then once you find, oh, this one thing is working for this one person. Now you can go and tell all of your other referrers that that's working. And, honestly, I mean, with a lot of things with my photo education business, it all came from the students like we ended up calling our students like booty babes, because it's like, we didn't even come up with that name. Like they started calling each other that and so I know this is a little off topic from affiliates and refers but I just think that the take home here is like always watch what your students are doing. Listen to them never discount the things that they're doing. Because they're amazing. So
100%, and that common thread is that you're building community and all these different places. Perhaps it was unintentional. But like you said, if they're calling themselves, babes, right, I'm assuming the booty is like short for boudoir, but I couldn't. That's what I said. I feel like even that peace, you know, that friendship and camaraderie that they're creating amongst their peers who become alumni who then become, you know, fellow referral partners. I think that's so cool. Because that alone can keep people coming back and wanting to further and continue to engage with your program long after they finished it themselves as students. And so you do this so well, Molly. And it's like funny because I feel like maybe you're just like sprinkling fairy dust wherever you go, and not really realizing it. But it's, it's amazing to see what's come of, you know, just starting small with telling students, hey, if you send someone my way, and just have a mention on a call, which actually is a side point I did want to ask you about real quick.
I know that for some students when they're participating in more informal referral programs, or if people are thinking about starting their own kind of informal referral structure, like you've shared in this case study. People sometimes feel awkward, like if they're having a conversation with someone and it goes really well. And that person does decide to join, they feel maybe sometimes a little hesitation in jumping in and giving that extra confirmation like, Hey, by the way, when you get on the call, make sure you tell them it was me who sent you right? Because it kind of feels like oh, wait a second, we're just...
Oh I remember how we did that we gave. So they would say like, oh, I came from Ashley or whatever, we would give them a discount too. So that's actually how we got around doing that. So I'm glad you brought that up.
Oh that's so smart! Okay, so...
So basically they would get it was like the referred would say, I have it written down here. The referrer got 500. And then I believe it was the student who signed up got like 100 off or something like that. So oh, a that way they would actually want to tell because otherwise, there was no way to do it. Yeah,
Right. No. And that makes complete sense to you. Because obviously, if you have $100 off to give to someone, you're gonna feel a lot more confident and being like, Hey, by the way, don't forget to use my name because you want to make sure you save this $100 versus just like, Hey, make sure you use my day period.
Like when people online or Instagram or wherever they'll be like, oh, and use my code, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Well, why but if they're like, oh, use my code, blah, blah, blah for a discount on like, okay, cool. You know, so it's like you need to give Yeah, both sides need to be rewarded for sure.
That's such a great point. And actually, it's modeled Well, I'm trying to think Where I've seen this and like a more corporate software, oh, Buzzsprout actually, you know, where we host our podcast, they have like a referral code that you can give anyone to, you know, sign up for us tomorrow. And I think when they do when they when someone uses your referral link, both of you get a $25, Amazon gift card or something like that. So it is like a win win on both sides, which I think is so smart that you're implementing in your program as well.
I actually wanted to touch a little bit what you said about like, the fairy dust thing, because I have thought about this a lot. I used to be the person where someone would say to me, like, Oh, you're so lucky. And I'd be like, it's not luck. It's hard work. Like I would almost be offended. But honestly, after, you know, 16 years in business, I do think there is an element of luck to it. And that's okay. Like, it's okay to be lucky and just accept the fact that like good things are coming your way. I think that's a good mindset to have. But also, I think that the luck really comes from trusting your gut, especially as a female entrepreneur, like, I cannot stress this enough that I've had, you know, I've spent $200,000 on other programs and mentors and things over the years. And you really need to make sure that you're not just taking all of that advice, literally and doing every single thing without thinking about it.
Because, you know, I've gotten advice from other people about affiliate programs refers all these different things, right. But I had to think about what's right for my particular audience, like, for example, Russell Brunson did this awesome launch where he launched his expert secrets book. And the top affiliate person, not only did they get the sales, but they also got like this Batman suit or whatever. So for example, my students would not care at all about a Batman suit, like, women who are like liberal artists do not really care about like Marvel movies and Batman or I don't even know if Batman is Marvel. But that's actually a lighthearted example. But I'm just trying to show you that it's so important. And I think the the fairy dust and the luck, and all of that comes from, like, really trusting your gut and doing what you think is right for your particular situation. Like, I really can't stress that enough.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, I could like clap and snap a million times for that. Because it is so true. I think leaning into your knowing your deep knowing is is so powerful to your point. And it's not wrong to embrace, like you said, luck, or fortune, or the good things that come your way. But I do think so much of stumbling into luck, per se is actually creating the space or putting yourself in the right places, or opportunities to even come across good fortune. And and you can't really do that if you don't trust yourself, right? So yes, I love I love that reminder, Molly. And speaking of having discernment for what is applicable to your business versus other people's, and what would best serve your own students. One thing that really intrigued me about your case study is you kind of mentioned this somewhere in your original, I think pitch for our show was you have to set certain boundaries or guidelines for your affiliates to so things don't run off the rails. So maybe we can wrap this case study with a look at like, obviously, you've had immense success with leveraging your own students, as affiliates to scale your course to 2 million a year. But also, what are the cons of having students as affiliates that people should consider? And what are some guidelines or boundaries people can put into place to help run their programs smoothly if they choose to implement this strategy?
Yeah, for sure. So definitely thinking about the rules and boundaries ahead of time. So how we debated ahead of time, if we were going to allow refers to promote in our own following spaces or not. That's huge. Because just because that works for us, it doesn't mean that it might, you know, it might work for you, it might not. And you can always try it. And you can always change the rules. And that's something else really important too is we have like an agreement when they signed up saying that we could change the rules for the program at any time for any reason, bla bla bla, right, because this is something that you need to have said, we also said that whoever the student said on the call was going to be the referrer. And there was no contesting of that. Because what if they talked to multiple people, you know, and so we just we just said that upfront, like hey, there might be a situation where they talk to you and they talk to so and so when they talk to so and so but they named so and so's name like this is how we have to do it. There's really no other way to do it. And luckily, that really wasn't actually as big of a problem as we thought it would be. But yes, before we even rolled out this program, we literally thought what are the pros, what are the cons what things are gonna go right what things potentially could be like absolute worst case scenario, and then build rules around that.
That's really why Are there any other things that you've seen as potential cons that maybe aren't addressed by a rule that you just mentioned, but just are things that business owner should keep top of mind when implementing an affiliate strategy period in their business?
Yeah, I would say the number one thing is your cost to acquire a customer? Like, can you actually afford to pay these referrers? And affiliates, especially if you take my advice on allowing them to promote to your own following? Like, how much are you paying? Let's say you're running ads, how much? Is it costing you to acquire even a lead? And so you have to pay for that, then you have to pay for the referrer. And if you're doing a high ticket program, now you have to pay out the salesperson a percentage as well. So really knowing your numbers before you just jump into something like this. And that's something I've learned the hard way. I'm like, the ultimate optimist. And there is, again, some element of luck in terms of like, I've just always been like, Yeah, let's do the thing like, like the Yes, girl, you know, but over time, I've really learned before you get too excited to implement something, really make a list of pros and cons for your business, you know, how could this potentially go the absolute best? And how could this potentially go the absolute worst? And then what do we think is going to be the average that we're going to pay per sale? And can we afford to do that? Is it still going to be profitable? And of course, that's how we came up with the amount we were going to pay out because we needed it to be something that was incentivizing enough for the student, but we also needed it to be something where we would still have a good enough profit margin. So yeah, for sure.
That's great. That's really helpful advice to just prepare for all possible scenarios, right. And the contract that you mentioned, so all of your affiliates sign that contract before they're officially an affiliate. And is that just like a standard boilerplate template? You got somewhere?
I believe it was, like a, like an embedded agreement, where they just clicked the Oh, and the reason I'm not 100% sure on that is because I had a team and 25 people at this point. And so I wasn't the one doing all of it, you know, so but I believe it was just something like that.
Okay, I totally understand what you mean, just for those of you listening, Molly's referring to like, you know, on a checkout page, when you click or you tick a checkbox, that's like, I agree to these terms and conditions, you can just have it laid out on something like that, if you don't want to do like an actual, you know, full, full blown contract.
As a final question on this case study before I have you share, you know, what you're working on currently, Molly, you just mentioned something that I totally forgot to ask you about. So I'm glad you brought this up. But you you mentioned you know, what, are you paying to acquire a lead? And then I was thinking about, okay, we didn't really cover when your affiliates are sending people to you they're sending someone to apply for a sales or book a sales call with your sales team to write for the program, correct? Yeah. Okay, awesome. Outside of just directly talking to that potential new student and answering any questions and sharing their own story in like a private DM? Are they sending potential new students to any sort of automated resource like a webinar or a sales page that shares more about the program before they have that private conversation? Or like I guess like where are your Student Affiliates leading people to before they just tell them hey, go book a call
All of our leads, no matter where they came from, so affiliates included would be sending them to the application page. So we like this wasn't just you know, a stick like we actually had people apply like we actually needed to know like, Are you a good fit for this program? And in a sense of we don't want to let anyone in that we don't think we can get a result for obviously right so so yeah, so maybe they already opted in and now they're reaching out to students or maybe they're reaching out to students and then they're applying it could be either or, but essentially the funnel was you we we've tried a lot of different things with it, but it was some kind of a lead magnet and then it was an automated webinar but it wasn't like ever webinar if you guys are familiar with that it wasn't anything like that. It was literally just like a 30 minute video which mostly was student testimonials like guys if, I'm telling you, your program will become literally hard to not sell if you have testimonies from a lot of people like the entire webinar was just like meet this person this is her results meet this person this is her results meet this person deserve results like it became almost hard for people not to want to join this program. And that's something that I've really learned like testimonial marketing and is like the number one so your your number one focus needs to be getting your students results.
Amazing. Well, that's such a good reminder for if you're just jumping into our mini series on word of mouth marketing with Molly's episode, make sure you go back to the first part of this series with Amanda Walker because her entire interview is all based around testimonials and how you can really pull out the best testimonials from your clients and your students. Well, yes, it I mean, this was seriously such a perfect Capstone the three of you, Amanda, you, Molly, and then Sarah, the three of your interviews just like perfectly fit together to provide this holistic view of word of mouth marketing. So I'm so grateful for your time. Where can our listeners, regardless of you know, if they're an aspiring photographer, or a photographer growing their business or not, where can they find you to connect further? And what's something you're working on that you're really excited about right now that you want our community to be looped in on?
Yeah, so just want to clarify again, you know, went from photographer to photo education, but now my business is called Freedom Creator and I help any content creators and business owners take their skills and expertise and knowledge and following and monetize it with digital products and courses. So if you go to freedomcreator.co, I have I'm not cool enough. for .com, I have tons of free resources on there for you guys. So I have like a free funnel that's already done for you that will help you build your email list. I have a free training about courses like tons of cool stuff on there. So so check it out.
Amazing. Well, we're going to drop that link below for you in the show notes. If you're watching this on YouTube, click below but if you're listening, make sure you scroll down and click that link to connect with Molly. Thank you so much again for sharing your insight so transparently. Molly, you're amazing, and I'm so glad we got to have you on the show to wrap up this series.
Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast.
Hey, Ellen here. Thank you again for tuning in to cubicle to CEO. If you enjoy today's episode, follow our show on Instagram at cubicle to CEO for more bonus content and hop on the last Tuesday of each month to watch our live after show with recent guests. If you want to support our podcast, text this episode link to a friend, leave a positive review on Apple podcasts or rate our show wherever you're listening right now. Please make sure you also hit the Follow button on Apple it looks like a plus sign. Or click Subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you don't miss out on our new episodes every Monday and friends until next time, keep dreaming big
